Congressional investigators and former administration aides said this week that Donald Trump pressured the vice president to agree to an illegal conspiracy to nullify the 2020 election, inciting a crowd that put the vice president’s life at risk when he refused to follow through with the plan. (16).
The House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol last year detailed how the former president scolded Mike Pence for not participating in the plan, even after learning that violence erupted as Congress met to confirm Joe Biden’s victory.
At its third public hearing on the uprising on January 6, 2021, the panel detailed Trump’s “brutal” pressure campaign on Pence as a pillar of a criminal plot to keep the defeated president in power.
“Donald Trump wanted Mike Pence to do something no vice president had done before: the former president wanted Pence to reject the votes and declare Trump the winner or send the votes to the states for a recount,” he said. Democrat Bennie Thompson.
“Mike Pence said no, he resisted the pressure. He knew it was illegal. He knew it was wrong.”
The committee’s vice chair, Republican Liz Cheney, said Trump’s lawyer, John Eastman, was the architect of the “ridiculous theory” and added that he supported the conspiracy even though the lawyer knew it was illegal.
The committee cited testimony from Pence’s attorney, Greg Jacob, who said Eastman had agreed to Trump two days before the riots that his plan would violate federal law.
“In danger”
A desperate Trump turned to Pence after dozens of legal objections to the election process were dismissed in courts across the country.
The defeated president used speeches and tweets to pressure Pence to abuse his position as Senate president and not recognize the election results.
Members of the Trump family were in the Oval Office when Trump had a “moving” phone call with Pence on January 6, according to a statement released at the hearing by the former president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump.
“I remember hearing the word coward,” said Nicholas Luna, a former Trump adviser.
Later that day, Trump referred to Pence several times during the “Stop Robbery” rally, where he told his supporters to march to Capitol Hill and “fight like hell”.
According to Committee member Democratic Representative Pete Aguilar, Pence was not mentioned in Trump’s original speech, but the former president improvised and reprimanded the vice president in a way that helped fuel the mutiny and threats against Pence.
But Pence resisted the pressure and sent a letter to Congress stating that the vice president did not have “unilateral authority” to disrupt the recount.
Aguilar explained that an informant told the FBI that the neo-fascist group Proud Boys would have killed Pence if given the chance.
He added that the mob that attacked the Capitol was about 40 meters from Pence. “Make no mistake, the vice president’s life was in danger,” he assured.
“Quite worrying”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows briefed Trump about the violence on Capitol Hill, but that didn’t stop the president from tweeting that Pence didn’t have the “courage” to overturn the election, the vice presidents said in videotaped statements.
The committee noted that immediately after the tweet, the crowd on Capitol Hill stood out. Instigated by Trump, protesters threatened to hang Pence for failing to cooperate in raiding the Capitol, even going so far as to erect a gallows in front of the building.
“It’s pretty alarming what the former president – potentially his vice president – is willing to sacrifice to stay in power,” Aguilar said. Said.
The panel showed a video clip of one of the protesters saying that if Pence “give up” the pressure not to cancel the election, he would “drag people into the streets”.
The committee also heard from retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who said the United States would plunge into “a revolution in constitutional crisis” if Pence yielded to Trump’s pressure.
Luttig, a prominent conservative lawyer, told Pence that his role in overseeing the approval of the elections was purely ceremonial.
“There was absolutely no basis in the U.S. Constitution or law for the theory Eastman espoused. No way. None,” he assured.
Trump reacted to the hearing by demanding that he be given “equal time” in the media to expose his false theory that the election was stolen, but opponents said the committee declined an invitation to testify.
source: Noticias
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